


Nerves

by shalako



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Clothes Sharing, First Time Sex, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, angsty tickling, casual sex gone wrong, my spiciest work to date perhaps, spice level: kind of mild, too much tea, very awkward pairing tbh, very awkward people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 16:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shalako/pseuds/shalako
Summary: Mr. Gold and Archie make a deal; it doesn't go as planned.





	Nerves

**Author's Note:**

> So. I found this in the notes on my phone, along with about a dozen other forgotten, fragmented Golden Cricket fics. This was the only finished one. I don't remember writing it and it's been done since last September. Happy first birthday to this bizarre freak of nature :^)

Five hours ago, Archie couldn’t claim to know much about Mr. Gold -- his first name, his age, how many siblings he had -- all that was a mystery. He’d seen Mr. Gold smile a few times, though he couldn’t say for sure whether those smiles were genuine, and Mr. Gold had seen him cry once, when he came to collect rent right after Archie’s father died. Gold’s face had gone utterly still, like stone, and he’d said something awkward and generically consoling, but he’d left as fast as he could when Archie handed over the money.

Still, Archie didn’t necessarily have a bad view of Mr. Gold. He liked Gold’s hair and narrow face and the way he sometimes broke out into animated gestures and expressions, proving that he was hiding something, hiding a more dynamic personality from the town in general. And he knew there was more to Mr. Gold than met the eye -- they’d had a single therapy session once, years ago, which was so bizarre that Archie sometimes wondered if it was a dream. Gold had been having trouble with panic attacks, he remembered. But Archie never got to witness one, and Gold’s description of them had been composed and succinct, unemotional. He was too reserved to make a good patient, and they hadn’t gone into potential triggers; Archie knew just enough about Gold to tentatively diagnose him with anxiety, and maybe with OCD, but he’d never witnessed symptoms himself, only heard about them in that lone, stilted therapy session.

And now Gold was crying in Archie’s bedroom, and both of them were … well, not fully clothed, and Archie didn’t know what to do. He stepped away from the bed and just stood there for a few minutes, staring at Gold, wringing his hands. Then he went to the closet and grabbed a t-shirt, pulling it over his head. There was a green sweater in the back of the closet that had shrunk in the wash when Archie first got it, and he pulled it out and walked back to the bed, holding it out to Gold.

It took a few moments for Gold to notice. His face was hidden by his hands. Slowly, he reached out and grabbed the sweater, and Archie turned away while he put it on.

He wasn’t sure why the crying had started. Gold had been … well, maybe not enthusiastic about sex, but certainly willing, and certainly composed. If he’d been nervous at all, he hadn’t shown it, and it was all his idea in the first place.

Archie put a hand over his mouth, surreptitiously touching his lips, remembering the soft warmth of Gold’s lips touching him. He’d touched Archie, ran his fingers across Archie’s ribs, down to his waist. They’d started out with Gold straddling him, undressing him, and at some point they’d moved and it was the other way around, Archie undoing the buttons on Gold’s shirt, Archie tracing Gold’s ribs (far more visible than his own), finding the faint white scar on his right side that spelled out a word. Archie could make out four of the seven letters clearly: A L C, right in a row, and an M at the end. The rest were too faded to tell.

Gold flinched, but when they made eye contact, his eyes were glittering, and he was almost smiling, and he still looked ready to do this. They kissed again, and Gold’s mouth opened. A short kiss, but deep.

“I like this,” Archie whispered, pulling back. That same look again from Gold, the glittering eyes, the intense slant to his mouth, almost amused. He didn’t respond, but he leaned closer to Archie until their chests were touching again. Seeking warmth. Archie was flushed, but Gold hadn’t reached that point yet; the room was cold, and there were goosebumps on his arms.

Those arms wrapped around Archie’s neck, pulling him down as Gold laid back in bed. They were both still in their underwear, hadn’t gotten round to taking it off yet. Archie teased the hem of Gold’s boxers, his fingertips brushing against Gold’s upper thigh, close enough to Gold’s cock to tickle him. Gold was extremely ticklish, Archie was learning; when Archie touched his stomach or got anywhere near his underarms, Gold flinched, and sometimes his mouth tilted and his jaw clamped as he tried to stifle a laugh.

Experimentally, Archie reached down with one hand and stroked the bottom of Gold’s foot. Gold wasn’t prepared for that; his leg jerked and he pushed himself back deep into the mattress, biting back a laugh he hadn’t meant to let out.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

“Do what?” said Archie, resting the offending hand on Gold’s ankle. Gold tensed up, saying nothing until it became clear Archie wasn’t going to do anything. He relaxed incrementally.

“Don’t tickle me.”

“You don’t like it?” Archie asked, and Gold opened his mouth to answer but then hesitated, unsure.

“I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I didn’t realize I was ticklish.”

Archie pulled back, his face stuck somewhere between a bewildered smile and a puzzled frown. “How old are you?” he asked. Gold’s expression mirrored his own.

“Fifty.”

“And you didn’t know you were ticklish? No one’s ever tickled you before?”

No answer. Archie considered this, his eyes raking over Gold’s body; he had a small frame, and clearly didn’t eat enough. Looking at him, you got the sense that he just about had to be ticklish.

“Well,” said Archie lightly, “you got a lot of years to catch up on. Wanna try it out?”

There was an odd look on Gold’s face, a mixture of trepidation, interest, and embarrassment. He leaned back on his elbows and a slow, reluctant smile broke out over his face.

“Alright, then,” he said.

As soon as they started, Archie realized he never would have felt really comfortable or intimate with Gold if he hadn’t tickled him first, especially considering how awkward and stiff they both were at the start. Gold curled against him from the moment Archie’s fingers touched his stomach, and for a while he shook with silent laughter before finally dissolving, giggling and gasping uncontrollably. Archie started laughing too, unable to help it, and eventually he and Gold were just lying against each other, trying to catch their breath.

Gold seemed softer now. Relaxed. He smiled at Archie, unguarded. They kissed again, softer than before, deeper.

And then Gold covered his face, and turned away, and started shaking, and it took Archie a minute to realize he was crying now, not laughing, and he didn’t know when one had changed into the other.

Shit.

Archie backed away, his hands trembling. Minutes later, when they were both dressed, Archie could tell the tears are tapering off, but he still didn’t know what to do. He stood awkwardly by the side of the bed with his hands on his hips, sometimes slipping them into his pockets, then back out again to wipe the sweat off his palms. Gold slowly uncovered his face and folded his hands over his mouth; his eyes were red-rimmed, and there were tear tracks on his face, but he was no longer crying.

Archie could feel embarrassment radiating throughout the room; he didn’t know where his ended and Gold’s began. He cleared his throat, trying to think of something to say. Gold didn’t so much as glance at him.

“Um, I think I’m gonna make some tea,” Archie said eventually, scratching the back of his neck. “W-would you like that?”

Gold didn’t respond. His eyes slid closed, and Archie took that as a reply, more or less. He hurried down into the kitchen, happy to lose himself in the rows of cheap, boxed teas he kept in the cupboard over the sink. He was still quivering, his mind buzzing around, completely incapable of coherent thought.

It was quite possible that Gold, being Scottish, might not care for Archie’s tea-making method, which was to microwave a cup of water and dunk a teabag in it. But if Archie were being honest, the cup of tea was only partially motivated by a desire to soothe Gold’s nerves; it was mostly to soothe his own, so it didn’t matter if Gold approved. He grabbed a calming, nighttime blend from the cupboard and popped two mugs in the microwave.

While the timer ticked down, Archie placed his hands on the counter and closed his eyes, trying to make sense of the day. Not just the last few minutes, either -- the whole day had been strange, from the moment Gold stepped into his office and offered him a deal, managing to seem confident and suave despite the innate awkwardness of the situation.

 _Casual sex_. The slight curve to Gold’s lips as he said it, the amused tint in his eye -- somehow, despite those things, Archie had known it wasn’t a joke, and he blushed and stammered, unable to reply for the longest time. His entire mind had stuttered, stuck on a loop: Gold’s feathery hair, the deep purple of his shirt against his skin, the words  _casual sex_ humming in Archie’s ears over and over again.

Archie could never tell if Gold was completely celibate or if he was fucking everyone in town -- it seemed like an either/or situation, and Gold was so casually flirtatious that it seemed he _had_ to be fucking everyone, or else entirely innocent and unaware that he was flirting at all. But he’d certainly fantasized about Gold before, and he knew he wasn’t the only one in town to do so, and in the end his brain stopped its stuttering long enough for him to say, “Yeah, okay, sure. Sounds good. Yeah,” in a squeaky voice he didn’t want to admit was his own.

He didn’t know why Gold would want to have sex with him. Maybe he was working through a list of everyone in town and he’d finally gotten to the bottom, where all the chubby, balding people were. Or maybe he genuinely had a thing for chubby, balding people, or maybe he just knew how few gay people lived in Storybrooke and figured he may as well go after one of the single ones. It was hard to read Mr. Gold and decipher his motivations -- he’d seemed genuinely bored at times, sincerely disinterested, but when he first took off his jacket there’d been a glimmer of excitement in his eyes, and when Archie undid his tie, he’d smiled tightly, so maybe the disinterest was a facade.

But then the tickling. That was a lot more embarrassing to Archie now, in retrospect. God, why had he done that? It wasn’t like he had a kink for it or anything. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d tried to tickle someone on purpose -- probably when he was a kid. But he’d thought it would help himself and Gold relax at the time, and now he was thinking it would have been better to just get everything over with, even if it was stiff at times, even if he and Gold alternated between pleasure and discomfort throughout. At least, if he’d done that, they might be done by now, and Gold would be putting his suit back on, confident and suave again, and the next time they saw each other they would just smile at each other, instead of …

Archie tried to imagine passing Gold in the street and feeling anything other than deep mortification. He couldn’t manage it. He felt like he’d forever see Gold breaking down in tears.

Once again, Archie found his thoughts wandering back to the hazy therapy session they’d had years ago. He wished he’d done more to cement it in his memory at the time; when Gold never came back for a follow-up, he’d allowed the details to become fuzzy and fade away. Was it a panic attack? Did Gold have anxiety about intimacy? Was that why he’d come to a therapist for _casual sex,_ because he thought Archie might be gentler than other people in town? But if he was anxious about it, why seek it out at all?

Archie sighed and shook his head. He was just removing the teabags from the mugs when Gold padded down the stairs and into the kitchen, looking more composed. He’d taken off Archie’s old sweater, put on his shirt, and then put the sweater back on again; Archie could see the silk, mauve-colored collar sticking out. It was crisply folded, but Archie still faced an overwhelming urge to reach out and adjust it.

He pushed away his racing thoughts and handed Gold the first cup of tea without a word. Gold took it, examining the Doctor Who pattern on the mug before taking a sip.

“It’s hot,” Archie warned, a little too late. Gold just shrugged and, after a moment’s hesitation, slid into one of Archie’s kitchen chairs. Archie joined him, cradling his own cup of tea until it cooled down. Gold’s eyes were red-rimmed still, but the tear tracks were gone, and he looked determined to pretend it was perfectly normal to have a panic attack in the middle of a make-out. He downed half the tea in his mug before speaking.

“Today never happened,” he said. Archie snorted, half-amused but mostly sad, and immediately regretted it when Gold glared at him. He held his hands up in a pacifying gesture.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, though what he was really thinking was, _Don’t be a drama queen_. “I won’t tell anyone. That goes without saying. Have you ever heard me kiss and tell before?”

Gold’s lips twitched into a frown. “We’ve barely talked at all,” he said.

“Well, true. But still, it’s not something I do.”

He could see the doubt in Gold’s eyes, so he stretched his arm across the table, pinky out, until something in Gold’s face melted and he reached out, hooking Archie’s little finger with his own. Miraculously, Gold actually seemed comforted by a pinky swear.

“I promise not to tell anyone,” Archie said, for good measure. “About anything today. The sex, the tickling--”

Gold held up a hand. “You don’t have to list it all.”

“Right. Sorry.” Archie hesitated. He took a sip of his tea, now that it was cool enough for non-psychopaths to drink. “Um, was the tickling … was that weird?”

“Undeniably,” Gold said, staring grimly into his Doctor Who mug. He drained it in one go, eyes sliding closed. “I think my nervous breakdown was… at least slightly weirder than that.”

“Oh,” Archie scoffed, “don’t call it that. Everyone cries now and then.” Gold looked at him in frank disbelief, and Archie added, “For no reason. Seriously. It happens -- people get overwhelmed, or stuff just builds up on them, and then suddenly you’re sobbing in the bathroom at McDonald’s because, like, you forgot to ask for no pickles on your cheeseburger, and now you can’t eat it, and you have no one to blame but yourself.”

Gold lifted his mug as if to take another drink, then remembered it was empty and set it back down. “You don’t eat pickles?” he asked, sounding mildly offended.

“It’s a hypothetical situation,” Archie said. “It has nothing to do with me -- you wanna refill?”

He gestured for Gold’s mug and Gold handed it over with a reluctant, “It’s shit tea.”

“Well, it’s Celestial Seasonings,” said Archie. “I’m not gonna pretend I’ve got gourmet Taiwanese tea leaves stashed somewhere.”

He filled the mug up at the sink and popped it in the microwave. A sort of resigned horror flashed briefly in Gold’s eyes at the sight.

“Do you have nervous breakdowns every time you have sex?” Archie asked as the water heated up. He used his Therapist Voice, so that what should have been a caustic question came out sounding gentle and concerned. “Or am I a special type of horrible?”

Gold’s nose wrinkled. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“So it does happen every time.”

The microwave went off and Archie dunked another teabag in the mug. He set it in front of Gold and took his seat again. Gold waited a minute before removing the teabag and tossing it in the trash. He ignored Archie’s line of questioning entirely.

“Is this the Sleepytime brew?” he asked, once again taking a sip of the tea long before it had the chance to cool.

“So you’re familiar with the Celestial Seasonings flavors, but you act horrified when I say it’s Celestial Seasonings?” Archie asked. Gold scowled and set the mug down, pursing his lips. He rolled up the cuffs on the sweater he borrowed from Archie so that they no longer covered his hands, and Archie saw the flash of a small, white scar on one of his fingers. Suddenly, he remembered the faint letters on Gold’s ribs and he tried to push the memory away.

It wouldn’t go. Gold took another sip of the tea and Archie looked at his eyes, the redness from earlier fading away.

“So …” he said. “What’s with all the scars?”

Gold took his time answering. “I don’t have any scars,” he said.

“They’re all old,” Archie said, “but you definitely do. I saw them earlier.”

Gold’s tone remained polite and distant as he said, “I don’t want to talk about it, arsehole.”

“Well, do you want to talk about the, er, nervous breakdown, then?” Archie asked.

“Absolutely not. I want to drink this tea and then I want to go home. That’s it.”

Archie considered that. “I don’t really believe that last part,” he said. “If you wanted to go home, wouldn’t you have just put your suit back on before you came down, instead of putting on your shirt under my sweater?”

“I’m keeping the sweater,” said Gold, straight-faced.

“No, you’re not,” said Archie. “I paid a lot for that sweater.”

“It’s too small for you. You can keep my suit.”

“ _That’s_ too small for me,” Archie said. He sighed heavily, trying not to smile, and caught Gold taking a sip of tea to hide a smirk. “Just stay the night,” Archie said. “No reason not to, right? You’re already here, we’ve already seen each other naked--”

“Well, shirtless.”

“--so there’s no pressure to do anything. And that _is_ Sleepytime tea, so I don’t feel like it would be responsible to let you drive home.”

Gold choked on a laugh. He folded his hands in front of his mouth to hide his smile, like he’d done earlier when he was crying. Archie grinned.

“You came here for sex, right?” he said. Gold raised his eyebrows, looking away.

“Well, yeah.”

“And that didn’t pan out,” said Archie wryly. “No reason why we shouldn’t just make it a date night instead.”

Gold sighed, fiddling with the ring on his right hand. “We’re not meant to be dating,” he said heavily. “It was supposed to be a one-night stand. The terms were clear before we started.”

“Yeah, but then I tickled you, and then you cried, and now we’re having tea, so it’s safe to say we got pretty far off track.”

Gold ducked his head, resting his forehead against the knuckles of his clasped hands. “Stop bringing that up,” he said, voice weary again. “I know it was … strange, and I’ll explain it some other day when I manage to …” He waved his hand vaguely, not meeting Archie’s eyes. “I don’t know. Unpack every fucked-up aspect of my personality and figure out exactly which issue caused a breakdown this time.”

“Safe to say I shouldn’t tickle you again, though,” Archie said, leaning back. Color rose in Gold’s cheeks.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe not necessarily.”

Archie raised one eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Gold said again. He let his hands fall to the table and shrugged. Absently, he put his fingertips on the rim of the mug and turned it incrementally until the side with the Doctor faced Archie and the side with the TARDIS faced Gold. Gradually, the tension in Gold’s face fell away, leaving him looking tired and sad. “Figured you more for a Star Trek fan,” he muttered.

“Oh, I am,” said Archie brightly. “Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica -- all the Star franchises. You?”

“I’ve never seen them,” said Gold. He shot Archie a warning look. “And don’t take that as an invitation for a marathon.”

Archie shrugged. “We gotta do something if you’re gonna spend the night. Although I could always order a pizza, and we could tell ghost stories and braid your hair.”

Gold’s lack of response indicated to Archie that none of those ideas were totally unwelcome. He finished off his tea and took the mug to the sink; for a moment Archie thought he was making another cup, but instead he just rinsed it out and set it aside.

“Alright,” said Gold, sitting back down at the table. “Here are the terms and conditions.”

Archie sat up straighter, paying full attention.

“Nothing sexual,” said Gold. “I spend the night. We never speak of any of this to anyone.”

Archie nodded, and Gold nodded back, then added,

“And I keep the sweater.”

Archie grinned. “That’s fair, but only if you tell me either about the scars or about why you were crying earlier.”

Gold looked pained, but he acquiesced. “Someday,” he said. “When I figure it out.”

“Works for me.”

“And you aren’t braiding my hair tonight.”

Archie stuck out his pinky again, smiling when Gold accepted it. “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Does anyone else remember the OUaT facebook game that came out between season one and season two? I think I must have hallucinated it sometimes, but I swear to God there was a part where you could read Archie's files on all the major characters, and Gold's said he had panic attacks, anxiety, and OCD. So if you've noticed that those things are kind of a Theme in my fics, it all traces back to that possibly-imaginary Facebook game.


End file.
